After the austerity, horror and bloodshed of World War I, France longed for joy, light-heartedness, and sexual freedom. Men and newly emancipated women alike rejected pre-war values and moral restraints. They embraced new lifestyles, and discovered a lust for extravagance, partying, and erotic experimentation that had the inter-war era known as the Roaring Twenties, or the ‘mad years’, and Paris as the City of Pleasure.
In this uncensored and fascinating photographic record of the period, historian Alexandre Dupouy pulls backs the bedcovers on Paris’s eye-opening erotic life, revealing the delights of its fetish scene, its licensed brothels and gay nightclubs, the first sex shop chains, erotic photography, pornography, and much more. This is an uncensored, titillating, and utterly fascinating look at the sexual excesses of the interwar period in what was arguably the world’s most decadent city.
Featured Story: The Biederer Brothers
Discover the remarkable story of Jacques and Charles Biederer, pioneering fetish photographers whose work is featured in City of Pleasure.
Bookseller and collector Alexandre Dupouy has been a leading authority of more than 30 years, and has written and contributed to numerous books in his native France. He is the proud owner of the Parisian emporium Larmes d'Éros. Open by appointment only, this treasure trove of a shop is more like a museum than a standard store: an Aladdin’s cave of earthly delights to arouse the senses.
